


The Winter Flower

by chilerelleno



Category: Wolf's Rain, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Gen, Hybrids, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29931450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chilerelleno/pseuds/chilerelleno
Summary: In a desolate Seoul, Jung Hoseok walks as the only wolf shifter for miles. He calls the territory his, and isn't afraid to fight for his life should someone stake their claim. But when a new "pack" moves in, his peaceful life falls apart bit by bit until all he has left to cling to are the people he despises. Luckily, they are united under a common goal: The Winter Flower. Their lives depend on it, and if it turns out to be a myth... their lives will end.
Kudos: 1





	1. Morning Light

A bug moved across the rubble. It was the first Hoseok had seen his whole life, besides cockroaches. This one was a shining, round red with a sprinkle of black dots. If this had been two-hundred years ago, this little creature would have been the queen of springtime.  
Now as Hoseok watched, the poor thing struggled to find purchase on the massive mounds of stone.  
There wasn’t any education for the underclasses in Korea now that the empire had fallen, so the lad didn’t know much about the little insect’s biology.  
He only knew what it meant.  
A scratching sound came within shooting distance of his hearing, somewhere almost out of range of his sensitive ears.  
Shit. He was the loner without the pack. The outlier. He was dead meat.  
He slipped into his other form and hid under a stone block perched on several others.  
They would smell him, but the least he could do was appear unassuming. Hah. More like a coward. He shuddered.  
He laid his head down on his paws and waited for them to come. The Flower had a way of forewarning things, so perhaps the little bug had been an omen of his death. Quite close to the date, though, huh?  
There was a long silence, and Hoseok tried to distract himself with visions of the Flower. He wondered what it looked like. What would it feel like to be caressed by its vines? Was it truly white as the legends said?  
Did it glow?  
The possibilities—  
The crackling of gravel startled Hoseok out of his daydream, and when he raised his head, came nose-to-nose with a large dog. His eyes were serious and he breathed the grey air, hinting to Hoseok he meant business.  
Not wanting to back down entirely in submission, the pack-less wolf froze and stared back. He couldn’t help his ears perking up when he heard more stones shuffling on the high city walkway.  
Another dog. And one human.  
A human?  
Hoseok scooted back into his hidey-hole. The human was the leader here. Without backup, the red wolf was nothing more than meat to be strung up at the marketplace down at Second and Fifth. The dog nearest to him snapped at the smaller Hoseok with a sudden motion, and Hoseok let himself phase back into human form.  
The big animal growled, and from underneath the stone enclave Hoseok saw the human approach. He had tactical pants on—black, thick, and a bit worn from crawling around.  
“Come out from under there. You’re freaking my friend out,” said the person.  
Hoseok gaped. Friend?  
“How do I know you won’t shred me to—” he started, only to be interrupted by the human’s other dog—a brown lab—nearing him with bared rows of white teeth.  
“You’ll be fine. He’s one of you,” continued the person, dropping onto his haunches and reaching out one hand to Hoseok, gesturing to the silvery-black dog with the other.  
Despite the gesture of friendliness, Hoseok couldn’t shake the feeling he shouldn’t trust this band of a ragtag pack. It was two dogs and a human.  
Odd. Very odd.  
His hesitancy caused the bigger dog to shift.  
The new man before him was rough, wearing clothing that matched his human, and a quiet smile.  
“Name’s Namjoon,” he said. “I’m the leader here.”  
Hoseok stretched out and tried to sit proper under the overhang of the rubble, but his human form was awkward in a place meant for a smaller creature.  
He dared not speak his name. Not yet. He wanted to play a little before his new rivals got in the way.  
“This is the part where you introduce yourself,” said the human, rising from where he squatted. He had the other dog on a leather leash, which was wrapped several times around his skinny pale hand. He released the tension on the dog’s bonds just a little, and the male animal gracefully (wait, what? Hoseok couldn’t believe his own description) went and peed on the stones nearest to him.  
What did they want from him?  
It was normal for their kind to assert dominance, male or female, but this smelled different. Hoseok was nosy, so he had to find out why. But if the scars on his nose and chest were anything to go by, he had learned the much needed lesson of staying quiet.  
It was like Hoseok to get lost in daydreams, often bumping into people on the street and getting smacked with brooms or screamed at, the militia called on him after he scared an ajumma and her twelve kids when he tried to sneak in their shanty home for some rare rabbit or vegetable jjigae.  
Running was something he was used to, and usually he had an out.  
But when Namjoon yanked the amber-haired exception out of his hiding place and pulled him to his chest, he yelped.  
A fight was a-brewin’.  
“This doesn’t have to be ugly,” assured the wolf-hybrid. “Just tell me who you are.”  
“Why should I? What do you have to give me?”  
The brown lab, now at the human’s side, seemed to be scowling at Hoseok with an indignant air.  
“Is this one a shifter, too?” the wolf blurted.  
Namjoon jumped at Hoseok and shoved him backwards into the pile of what once was part of a parking garage. As Hoseok struggled to catch himself, Namjoon spat, “Yes, he is. He prefers to stay this way, though.”  
“How’d ‘e end up with you? How are you all connected?”  
Hoseok tried to hide the hair rising on his arms, but his new companions—save the human—sensed it and Namjoon laughed, though it came out in a strangled way that was characteristically animalistic. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”  
Hoseok decided he couldn’t stand the hybrid’s deliberate mysterious machinations, so he launched into a kick at the wolf-dog’s stomach with his worn steel-toed boot. He’d probably regret this, but his blood was boiling and his territory had been violated. If anyone was coming out of this fight with a claim to What-Used-To-Be-Gangnam, it was him.  
Namjoon buckled at the attack, but didn’t fall. Didn’t shift.  
Ugh.  
The red wolf laid into him again before his enemy could jump back at him, twisting the mutt’s foreleg and kneeing him hard in the chest. The wraith-like human and his faithful pet fled, though to Hoseok’s surprise the person yipped in pain as if he’d been in the fight.  
They cared for one another as if they were an actual wolf pack.  
Ah.  
It made sense now.  
Hoseok had gleaned a bit from the interactions, but now it all fell into place.  
For the hybrid’s protection, the filthy man would offer him lessons in how to blend in. And the dog… well, they had always been man’s faithful servants. As far as Hoseok knew, this situation was no different. Perhaps he was a rescue. Obviously valuable, from the way the leash held him.  
Namjoon tried to pull Hoseok down—but unlike most shifters who found themselves tripping on their human feet, Hoseok moved with a grace undue even most full humans—and he dodged, skidding back. He ran toward the safety of where the concrete wasn’t crumbling and paused.  
Again, nosy.  
“You could” —Namjoon coughed— “make a great addition to the pack. Shifters are not all that common.”  
“That’s right,” said the human. “We came all this way to find you on a scent. Jin led us here with his powerful nose.” He reached down to pet the brown lab, who looked grateful for the rub.  
Hoseok grimaced, clucking his tongue. Domesticates.  
“Why would I join a pack of non-wolves?” Hoseok wondered aloud, partly ruffled and partly genuinely curious.  
“ _You’re_ blunt,” mused Namjoon from the ground, trying to get up but failing. He’d have a bruise there for a while if not a couple broken ribs.  
“Yeah, and what’s it to ya?” asked Hoseok, bristling.  
“Who taught you to speak? Where’d you grow up, I mean?” the injured wolf-hybrid continued. “Myself, I was someone’s pet in Ilsan. A rare pup.”  
“But they beat ‘im bad, for all his exoticness,” the human said.  
What would this jackass know? He’s not technically filth according to human society, but Hoseok would always consider him such.  
“I learned me good on the streets,” the wolf said, jokingly slipping into dialect.  
“Gwangju? Far from here. You’re a wanderer, just as we suspected,” said the human. “My name’s Min, by the way. Min Yoongi. You’re a pretty boy, with that coloring. I’m surprised no pound has picked you up yet. You could pass for a dog.”  
“Are you dumb?” Hoseok turned around and began walking away, though he was highly aware of the three pack members watching him. “No dog is like me. I’m no cutie.”  
“I was paying you a compliment, that’s all,” Min said, raising his hands in defense. The leash holding his pet went with them. Hoseok could sense it from where he stood, ears listening carefully. “You really seem like the type to get lonely easily, though… I wonder where that stems from.”  
“I make it okay,” Hoseok snapped, just as defensive.  
“That fire is exactly what we need,” said Namjoon, grunting, though mediating the argument nonetheless.  
“I’m not joining you. I do what I do, alone,” said Hoseok, moving again.  
This time, there were no sounds of human speech to follow him and he was almost to the stairs that went to the bottom floor when he heard Min call out.  
“We’ll be here,” he shouted.  
It was a bit frightening to think about, because Hoseok knew that he wouldn’t have the element of surprise next time.  
For now, jjigae.


	2. Let Me Look At You

From this high up in the city, one could see the damage done to the humans’ living places. Everything was crumbling. Once beautiful glass towers had been smashed to the ground like lego blocks under an unwieldy child’s fist, the remnants of which were scattered all around.  
Underneath the decaying bodies of the past lives of Seoulites were people. In the past, the poor used to be sequestered to one section of the city, but they roamed freely throughout it now. Hoseok didn’t mind. Human society and its classes weren’t of his concern.  
Usually, he thought. It was when his kind got conditionally applied to the barely-there government’s agenda that he grew weary… and angry.  
There were others like him, and “like” was a light word. Those others included in the category were animal-human hybrids, not shifters. And they were an entirely different can of worms.  
Hoseok descended the stairs in his human form and almost phased back to his wolf self when he caught sight of a rich man walking down the street unaccompanied. Hoseok could tell he was moneyed from the way he carried himself and the way he smelled—like an array of animals mixed with the stickiness of cologne. But without an entourage… now that was strange.  
Hoseok jumped back up a few steps into a shadow, just when the middle-aged man was pulling up a holographic screen on his watch. Eek, he didn’t want to get caught in that fire.  
“The area seems to be cle—oh, who are you?” said the man, pointing at Hoseok. The wolf blanched—oh how he hated that feeling in this form—and slid down the few steps he’d just skipped up. He didn’t think he could run from this one. But he’d try.  
“Jung,” he breathed.  
“No need to be scared,” replied the man. “I’m just here to monitor the area, and we’re doing a study on underclass B. You look like a perfect fit! Let me look at you.” He clapped his hands together, sending his whole body shaking and the curled orange feather on his hat vibrating.  
This man must have been really rich. Even fake feathers were hard to obtain, and something told Hoseok that one was real.  
The wolf raised his chin a bit, knowing the noble would inspect him top to bottom if he already hadn’t.  
This was important in the society Hoseok had been born into. When he was growing up, there was less pressure put on looks and rank. But that was because he and his pack had been isolated. Now he had to shed his wolf skin for a human one in order to fit in, and he didn’t.  
He just hoped he didn’t get caught in five minutes. Maybe ten, but not five.  
“Wow, your hair’s such a lovely color red. It looks natural to me…” The noble trailed off.  
“It’s not,” Hoseok said quickly. “I got my hair done by a homeless woman here. She might’ve gotten picked up. We get what we can get ‘round here.”  
The noble grinned. “She was quite the talent. I spent my youth wanting my hair to be as wolves’, salt-and-peppery of sorts with all those streaks. But as you know, that sort of thing is taboo.”  
Weirdo, Hoseok thought, though out his mouth came, “You must stand above the crowd, then.” He had learned to ingratiate himself in front of important people when really necessary, but otherwise he was a fireball.  
“I’d like to think so,” he said with pride.  
“Now that you got to meet an Underclass B, I’m headed out,” Hoseok said, trying to side-step the cloaked man but running into his long arm instead.  
“I don’t know, Jung,” he said. “You’re quite the catch. I sort of want you for a personal servant. You talk a bit rough, talk a big game, but I sense softness and sensuality under that exterior.”  
He grabbed Hoseok’s arm—in a faded green hoodie—and slid his fingers across it. Even though the spring air was warm, Hoseok could feel a chill to them that sent a shiver up his back. He silently tried to untangle his arm from the noble’s grasp, but the man wouldn’t let go.  
Instead, he started walking and made as though he was leading Hoseok.  
“I know your family will appreciate the sum you could send home every week,” he went on, the translator he was using faltering a bit as it went up and down registers. The humans had never been able to make one that seamlessly functioned. Even the one on this guy’s watch—presumably the latest model—didn’t seem to catch all the nuances Hoseok was conveying. And maybe that was good, for if it had, it could have identified him as a wolf.  
“I wouldn’t want to burden you, Sir,” Hoseok said. “I’m not a good worker. I only help around the house and…”  
“This time you got a bit lost, wandering the city? Ah, my boy, that’s perfectly normal. But I must ask you to trust me.”  
Hoseok was squirming on the inside. What was he supposed to do? All these years of living by himself, and now he was going to get caught?  
Yikes.  
“Yes, Sir,” he found himself saying.  
“That’s a good kid. You’re a good one, I can tell. Look at you, your body’s in perfect condition for servantry! I even have some Koreans back at my house. You can speak with them there,” said the noble.  
The man, to Hoseok’s disgust and surprise, looped his arm in his. He tapped his watch, and a hover car came zipping down the street. The door popped open, and the man allowed Hoseok in first—ah!—coming after him with a sublime smile on his face.  
The door slammed shut before Hoseok even had time to think, and the noble began to question him as they sped off to some unknown location.  
“I’ve never heard a Korean speak like you before” —you don’t get out much, do you?— “so do tell me where you’re from.”  
The machine gargled the strange tongue the man was speaking and slowly turned it into garbled Korean.  
“G-gwangju,” Hoseok replied. He was nervous, but not about revealing where he grew up, necessarily. He was proud of it, which was odd for a wolf as they normally felt no attachment to where they lived nor died. It was one of the human tendencies he’d developed, but perhaps not by force.  
“I have interests there. Quite a lot of flooding, I remember. From the images, I couldn’t recognize it at all after a certain point. Truly sad.”  
This is where Hoseok was supposed to comment on the tragedy, but all the ecological strife done to the Korean Empire from global warming still brought tears to his eyes. He remained quiet.  
“An advocate of the environment, are you? I am, too. I’m particularly interested in a certain flower.”  
Hoseok couldn’t avoid a sharp intake of breath as he caught on.  
“I see—you’re a fan. My company and I have been trying to find the flower since my early twenties when I inherited the enterprise from my father. No such luck. But us Aguillards are strong; we don’t give up.”  
Hoseok had never met anybody actively trying to find The Winter Flower. It was said to not exist, yet everybody in the French colony of Avant-poste celebrated its existence. Fitting, since it was a ghost-like, phantomish, secretive, rare bloom.  
“I could help you find it,” Hoseok said before he could stop himself.  
The noble—Aguillard—laughed and patted Hoseok’s leg. “Finding the Diphylleia grayi” —Hoseok winced, and the car engine sputtered— “is my business. Yours is something else entirely,” he said, leaning back for the first time into the seat.  
“What’s that?”  
“To belong to me. It’s a great honor.”  
Hoseok felt his temperature rise. Perhaps it was from the fact that Aguillard had used The Flower’s real name, which Hoseok had heard but once and had all but forgotten, maybe blocked out. More likely it was due to the fact that he was angry at his own willingness to submit to such a creep.  
“Yes, Sir.”  
He smiled.  
But really, he just wanted the jjigae.


	3. I'm Not a Witch, I'm a Shaman

“You looked like you were having the most fretful dreams,” said a voice, the owner brushing its hand against his. Jungkook startled.  
Boxes. A small room. The smell of mildew. Where was he?  
“Be not afraid,” said the voice again. “It is only I. Your friend. Do you remember me?”  
Jungkook remembered. At the edge of his memory crept a name.  
“Camille?”  
“Yes, me! You’re so warm,” she ran her hand against his sweaty forehead.  
Jungkook buckled under her touch. It was infused with magic, the magic of a healer—and he couldn’t get enough of it.  
“Be still,” whispered Camille as she dabbed Jungkook’s head with a cloth. He half-expected it to be dirty due to the state of the room, but it was a clear white.  
“Why am I here? Why do you help me?”  
“Because it’s my duty as a musok-in. I have learned many skills from my mother. I am one to trust my instincts, and they say, ‘Help this boy,’” said Camille, taking the cloth and dipping it into a different bowl from which the water came.  
“Your mother is dead.” Jungkook’s vision is blurry, but he meets the young woman’s eyes as best he can without succumbing to his unconscious once again.  
That would be deadly.  
“Rightly. But she speaks to me from beyond the grave, and offers me guidance.” Camille’s long hair shifted with her as she fixed her patient up with a liquid smelling of herbs. She was from a different time, born blended of French and Korean blood, but outcast due to her mother’s strange ways and her father’s cruelty.  
Alluring.  
Beautiful.  
And dangerous.  
Jungkook slapped the cloth out of her hand, but she was quick and didn't let it hit the floor.  
“I knew you were broken from the moment I saw you lying in the alley,” she said, moving away from him at a slow pace.  
Smart.  
“Broken?” This word came strangled out of Jungkook’s mouth, like a lion’s roar that had been bottled too long.  
“Yes. Broken but new. The ghosts that hadn’t been covered by rubble told me about you,” she continued.  
“What would they know?” Jungkook snapped.  
Camille had stood up now, and was dusting off her old-fashioned dress. But she stopped to meet the wild eyes of the boy she had rescued from certain death. And with her stare came ferocity.  
“You don’t even know who you are, and I shan’t tell you for fear of all my work going to waste.” Though it sounded vaguely aristocratic, she in fact held no airs about her.   
Jungkook realized his hands had leaped to his head and were holding it tightly.  
He gargled in pain, but the musok-in had moved on to viciously tapping something on what Jungkook assumed was the table to the side of where he last saw her.  
“Stop it,” he yelled, unable to take the rapping.   
The world quieted instantly, but Jungkook’s heart was still beating fast, too fast. He could hear the shaman girl’s breathing. He could hear _everything_.   
The washboard as an old woman banged around not 20 feet from where the hut was. _Loud_.  
A fly buzzing. _Louder_.  
Thousands of dust motes whipping by. _Whipping_ by.  
He screamed and screamed as more sounds consumed him, then his chest ran out of air and he couldn’t breathe.  
Down to the floor he went, knocking the herby water over as he hit the ground.  
Jungkook lay suspended, unable to think, move, or cough for what seemed like all too long. He felt Camille digging around in his mouth with something pokey. His mind said: ‘syringe?’ though he didn’t exactly know what that was, not being able to remember anything from longer than an hour before.  
Then finally he woke up after he had to listen to his heart return to a normal keel. Each. Excruciating. Beat.  
Even after he accidentally proved his ability to move by twitching and smacking the herb bowl again, he didn’t blink. Didn't loosen a joint. His eyes stared at the ceiling, but his mind wandered all around the room.   
“You’re free to go,” said the musok-in.  
“What if I don’t want to?”  
She sighed. “All that you need is a prescription. I don’t believe in those, but… What it is, is very simple. All you need is water and Golden Sunrise juice. You can blend them as needed.”  
“Golden Sunrise juice? Where can I find it?”  
Camille’s eyebrows furrowed. “Would’ve thought that’d be the first to come back. You can find it at most convenience stores, but remember, despite dandelions’ ubiquity, money doesn’t have the same properties.”


End file.
